


sweet fine day

by dogeared



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Gen, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Recovery, Spring
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-01
Updated: 2014-06-01
Packaged: 2018-02-03 00:36:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 425
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1724717
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dogeared/pseuds/dogeared
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>These are the things that Bucky likes, now.</p>
            </blockquote>





	sweet fine day

There's a dim, narrow tea shop in Brooklyn, run by a dark-skinned young woman—too young for a place that feels this old-fashioned, and Bucky thinks she might be the daughter of the owner, or the granddaughter, imagines generations of women here, measuring tea leaves into paper bags, weighing them, neatly writing out instructions for how much and how long to brew. She patiently offered him sample after sample until he found something he liked enough to want more of.

(Natasha told him it was okay to want things, to like things; she's the one who gave him the vintage podstakanniks, and if drinking his tea out of Russian silver plate and glass is a little too on the nose, maybe Bucky's rediscovering his sense of irony, too.)

The tea shop is squeezed tight between other, newer storefronts, bright and busy, monochrome and minimalist. Bucky doesn't know what they sell, but now that spring has finally come to the city, there's a handcart filled with potted flowers in front of one of them. And on the sidewalk next to the cart, there's the body of a bird.

It's stunned or exhausted, not dead like Bucky first thought. Maybe it hit a window; maybe it flew a long way. It's tiny and delicate, streaked mustard yellow, with a dark, intelligent eye like a black bead. Bucky picks it up, gentle as he knows how, feels its living body, its heart beating in a quick flutter against his fingers. He tucks it in the shade of one of the planters, settles on a bench on the other side of the street, waits.

Bucky can feel the sun through his shirt on his shoulders, on his arms, flesh and metal. A dog pauses to sniff around the bench, wags its tail and licks Bucky's hand twice before trotting away with its owner.

These are the things that Bucky likes, now: mint tea, hot as he can stand; thick, cold chocolate milkshakes; riding the train out to Far Rockaway, Steve's thigh pressed warm against his own; stepping out on the platform to hear gulls, to smell seaweed and saltwater.

Across the street, there's movement—a blur of wings and flight as the bird zooms toward him and alights on a branch above his head. It peers down at Bucky with its black eye, then disappears into the tree's leafy green camouflage.

He takes a breath, and another, and tips his face up to the sun. These are the things he likes, now. He has a list. It's growing longer.


End file.
